This post is from from my other blog here

When left to your own devices without an interpreter for twelve days in a blissfully, beautiful and kind African country:

You can take a bucket bath every day and stay remarkably clean–cleaner in fact than you usually are in the good old U. S. of A.

Peeing in a four inch diameter hole in the ground in the dark requires skill but when mastered can leave you with a strange kind of happiness and triumph in your heart.

Girls need their mothers. No other mother will do.

You can’t pawn off your unique responsibility in the world on any other person; if you aren’t who you are meant to be on this earth, no one else can take your place–it’s true.

It takes incredible sophistication and skill to cross cultures, continents and eras. You can only discover you’re uniquely talented (and qualified) to do this job after traveling hours by motorcycle out to the bush to drink raw milk and eat with your hands in a proverbial mud hut with some of the most genuinely gentle and kind people on earth.

The Universe places equal value on believing there’s humor in the world as much as knowing there’s hope.

You can be a girl if you want to, but it helps to be playful about it–especially when dealing with stereotypical African men.

A thousand year old story told over hours as you pass through the places where that story happened can make you cry very hard from a deep place in your soul.

American hip hop means much more when you’re listening to it on a radio in a crowded taxi in Africa.

Raw cow’s milk consumed from ancestral pots is the nectar of heaven.

No one understands hope like refugees or immigrants, displaced from their country for over three decades.

Two common phrases “Take it easy” and “The time will come” are full of a depth and wisdom that can change you forever, if you have the courage to be responsible for the constant game show of silliness going on in your crazy story-making head.

Despite all the evidence you might gather to the contrary, you really do have everything you need–especially when you possess a wide open heart and a unique kind of courage that goes very far in a far off country.

A brief foray into an old Bible left by a pesky preacher will remind you in an essential moment that you have more faith than you give yourself credit for.

A fifty word vocabulary executed with enthusiasm and love is a formidable resource.

There’s nothing like visiting strangers, connecting with tears or watching people fill with happiness and hope to help you understand for the first time that you (shockingly enough) are the magic you wish to see in the world.

True love starts with deeply loving and appreciating your own wild tender heart.

You can be strong and tender, open and honest, forgiving and insisting, all at the same time.

You can be (and often are) for yourself and others, a dream come true.

Immensely thankful for these twelve days and the chance to be home again. I got a glimpse at my future work and my healed heart–two very essential things. More news on the girls in the posts to come.